On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 10:41 PM, Mike Godwin <[hidden email]> wrote:
> I disagree that there is a "huge" probability of legal exposure with regard > to this question. I follow moral-rights jurisprudence reasonably closely, > and I have yet to see any reason to believe that the risk of legal action > against the Wikimedia Foundation (or anyone else) is going to be increased > by the new licensing scheme. (Indeed, if the probability were huge, we would > already have seen such cases, since the GFDL prescriptions are more exacting > than the CC-BY-SA prescriptions.) Free content became important legal form of content since Wikipedia. And we are leaving the time when Wikipedia was a miracle with extreme amount of good faith around it. Also, all contributors were us and we don't want to sue us. As Wikipedia is becoming more and more a regular part of our civilization, we may expect more and more regular behavior. We already had malicious legal attacks in UK, Germany and France (I remember those three issues). We had a number of informal settlements, even in Serbia (a relatively famous person, a daughter of famous Yugoslavian director and translator, wanted money for some quotes at Bosnian Wikiquote). By building a position with significant holes, and attribution issue is still a significant hole, we are making unsustainable construction. If we have, let's say, 10.000.000 of contributors and 1% of them (100.000) is not happy with Wikipedia because of any reason and 1% of them (1000) want to sue WMF or whoever and 1% of them can do it, we'll have 10 big problems. We may fail in just 10% of the cases and we'll suffer from significant consequences. > I'm known to be risk-averse with regard to legal exposure for the > Foundation, but I am not terribly troubled by the prospect you raise here. > Moral-rights doctrine is grounded in assumptions about authorship that don't > map well to massive collaborative enterprises like Wikipedia. Explaining to > a court how we do handle attribution in the context of such enterprises -- > including the fact that we make an effort to do reasonable attribution -- > should convince most reasonable courts that the purposes for which > moral-rights doctrine was invented are being served. I lose sleep over > other kinds of legal issues relating to Wikimedia projects, but not this > one. Note that the whole idea related to the license migration and relaxing attribution is because of content reusing, and just in small part because of Wikipedia itself (while I see benefits for Wikibooks and Wikiversity, I don't see any significant benefit for Wikipedia). Also, Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects are attributing all contributors. So, reusers may be sued for plagiarism ("Copyright Me and Wikipedia authors", even "Me" contributed much less significant material than 20 Wikipedia authors). After the first couple of such processes Wikipedia recommendations would loose any credibility. (And you should know better if it would be possible that WMF would be sued for misleading recommendations.) BTW, it won't be an issue if we are living in a world without bourgeois egotism :) But, we aren't living in such world. Technically, our biggest problem may be removing 100.000 edits. And it is possible to be done without endangering the project. But, we may suffer from harder consequences: If someone insists to be attributed and we say that that person has to be attributed, others will follow that example. This is especially true for projects out of English language ones. English Wikipedia, for example, has large basis of contributors who are contributing there because of free knowledge. Other projects may have significantly different contributor basis. Around a year ago around five very active contributors (of ~40 of very active contributors in that time, if I remember well) left Serbian Wikipedia. They made another project and they chose CC-BY-NC-ND license there. If they would be at the project at the time when the first contributor demands and gets attribution, I guarantee that those five contributors would be the first who would follow that contributor. In that situation I know the next ~10 contributors who would demand attribution just because previous five got... And we would end with one of two options: (1) general rule that all authors have to be attributed or (2) that 90% of authors say that they have to be attributed. So, again, useless recommendations with transitional mess. Note, again, that this is not an issue directly related to Wiki[pm]edia, but to reusing of Wiki[pm]edia content. And about moral rights doctrine: If it is not scaled well to massive collaborative enterprises, the answer is not not to address them at all, but to scale it. (I am talking again something which I don't want... I want moral rights not to be addressed, but are you sure that it will work?) BUT, if you think that there is no reasonable threat to be sued for "misleading recommendations", it doesn't cost a lot to try that way. Fixing credibility is much less dangerous than loosing two years budget. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 4:16 PM, Milos Rancic <[hidden email]> wrote:
> > As Wikipedia is becoming more and more a regular part of our > civilization, we may expect more and more regular behavior. We already > had malicious legal attacks in UK, Germany and France (I remember > those three issues). I'm aware of these, and other legal threats as well. By building a position with significant holes, and attribution issue > is still a significant hole, we are making unsustainable construction. My assessment is different from yours. > > If we have, let's say, 10.000.000 of contributors and 1% of them > (100.000) is not happy with Wikipedia because of any reason and 1% of > them (1000) want to sue WMF or whoever and 1% of them can do it, we'll > have 10 big problems. We may fail in just 10% of the cases and we'll > suffer from significant consequences. This is a version of Pascal's Wager. I don't really believe, however, the risk is even as high as you suggest here. We'll be fine. > After the first couple of such processes Wikipedia > recommendations would loose any credibility. I don't consider this a significant risk. > BUT, if you think that there is no reasonable threat to be sued for > "misleading recommendations", it doesn't cost a lot to try that way. > Fixing credibility is much less dangerous than loosing two years > budget. I don't think there's any reasonable threat of this sort. --Mike _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
2009/3/20 Mike Godwin <[hidden email]>:
>> If we have, let's say, 10.000.000 of contributors and 1% of them >> (100.000) is not happy with Wikipedia because of any reason and 1% of >> them (1000) want to sue WMF or whoever and 1% of them can do it, we'll >> have 10 big problems. We may fail in just 10% of the cases and we'll >> suffer from significant consequences. > > > This is a version of Pascal's Wager. I don't really believe, however, the > risk is even as high as you suggest here. We'll be fine. Pascal's Wager involves infinite gain/loss - this is just basic risk analysis and has nothing at all to do with Pascal's Wager. I think the percentages given as plausible, but do we really have 10 million contributors? The English Wikipedia apparently has 9,237,657 registered users, but I believe a very large proportion of them have never made an edit, an even larger proportion won't have any edits which still exist in articles. I find it very unlikely that there are 10 million contributors, even across all Wikimedia projects, that have copyrightable contributions. (Of course, I'm ignoring anons - I don't see how they can realistically sue for copyright infringement.) So I think the expected number of problematic cases is significantly less than 1, but it certainly isn't 0. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 5:15 PM, Thomas Dalton <[hidden email]>wrote:
> > Pascal's Wager involves infinite gain/loss - this is just basic risk > analysis and has nothing at all to do with Pascal's Wager. It's true that Pascal's own version of Pascal's Wager involves the risk of infinite loss, but it's commonly used among modern philosophers (and lawyers and others) to refer to scenarios regarding small probabilities of very large losses (since in the real world we humans mostly don't deal with infinite losses or gains). If I tell you there's only a 1 percent change of a 10-trillion-dollar personal loss (for example), the same paralyzing logic of Pascal's Wager applies, even though 10 trillion dollars isn't an infinite number of dollars. (And that's all I'll say here about Pascal's Wager on this list -- if you want to discuss it privately, I'm happy to continue that off-topic discussion, since I've been interested in the subject for almost three decades.) So I > think the expected number of problematic cases is significantly less > than 1, but it certainly isn't 0. > Fortunately for legal risk assessment, there's no need for risks to be zero in order for them to be judged insignificant. --Mike _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
In reply to this post by Nikola Smolenski
2009/3/20 Nikola Smolenski <[hidden email]>:
>> The fact that they may or may not be logged in is completely >> irrelevant if the terms and conditions clarify that their username has >> nothing to do with the option of supplying an Original Author name as > > But the terms and conditions do not clarify that, anywhere. So let's step back for a second. There is a claim that the legal code of CC-BY-SA cannot be reconciled with the notion of attributing via URL-linkback only. Do you agree that this claim is false? If the claim is false, then surely it is possible to create terms and conditions for a website under which authors contribute under such a model. If it is possible, then the final question is whether the current proposed terms for the edit page satisfy those conditions. I contend that they do, because they are sufficiently clear about the intended consequences (we don't need to spell out in detail how the terms and conditions relate to the license, as long as it's possible for them to relate to the license in a way that is logical and consistent). -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
In reply to this post by Thomas Dalton
On Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 1:15 AM, Thomas Dalton <[hidden email]> wrote:
> I think the percentages given as plausible, but do we really have 10 > million contributors? The English Wikipedia apparently has 9,237,657 > registered users, but I believe a very large proportion of them have > never made an edit, an even larger proportion won't have any edits > which still exist in articles. I find it very unlikely that there are > 10 million contributors, even across all Wikimedia projects, that have > copyrightable contributions. (Of course, I'm ignoring anons - I don't > see how they can realistically sue for copyright infringement.) So I > think the expected number of problematic cases is significantly less > than 1, but it certainly isn't 0. We'll have. If you start with just 100.000 contributors and raise percentage to 10% (which may be reasonable too), you'll end with 100 cases. But, it is reasonable to suppose that Mike's legal predictions are more relevant than mine :) So, legal part is no issue anymore for me. The only issue which stays is related to users which declare that they want to be attributed: Would we allow that? If yes, is there any plan ("yes" is good answer enough) how to deal with making attribution recommendations useless? If no, is it possible it legally? _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
2009/3/21 Milos Rancic <[hidden email]>:
> On Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 1:15 AM, Thomas Dalton <[hidden email]> wrote: >> I think the percentages given as plausible, but do we really have 10 >> million contributors? The English Wikipedia apparently has 9,237,657 >> registered users, but I believe a very large proportion of them have >> never made an edit, an even larger proportion won't have any edits >> which still exist in articles. I find it very unlikely that there are >> 10 million contributors, even across all Wikimedia projects, that have >> copyrightable contributions. (Of course, I'm ignoring anons - I don't >> see how they can realistically sue for copyright infringement.) So I >> think the expected number of problematic cases is significantly less >> than 1, but it certainly isn't 0. > > We'll have. If you start with just 100.000 contributors and raise > percentage to 10% (which may be reasonable too), you'll end with 100 > cases. 10% doesn't sound at all reasonable to me. > But, it is reasonable to suppose that Mike's legal predictions are > more relevant than mine :) So, legal part is no issue anymore for me. Only the last percentage is really a legal prediction, the rest are more predictions of human behaviour. That said, the last percentage is probably the only one that anyone can give anything more than a wild guess at (which is why I didn't choose any stronger words than "plausible" to describe them). _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
In reply to this post by Erik Moeller-4
2009/3/21 Erik Moeller <[hidden email]>:
> So let's step back for a second. There is a claim that the legal code > of CC-BY-SA cannot be reconciled with the notion of attributing via > URL-linkback only. Do you agree that this claim is false? If the claim > is false, then surely it is possible to create terms and conditions > for a website under which authors contribute under such a model. If it > is possible, then the final question is whether the current proposed > terms for the edit page satisfy those conditions. I contend that they > do, because they are sufficiently clear about the intended > consequences (we don't need to spell out in detail how the terms and > conditions relate to the license, as long as it's possible for them to > relate to the license in a way that is logical and consistent). Again you miss the point. Wikipedia has 293,896,584 edits that were not released under those TOS. -- geni _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
In reply to this post by geni
2009/3/20 geni <[hidden email]>:
> Your suggestion that wikipedia:copyrights has any baring on what > people have agreed to have done with their work simply doesn't hold > water. Well, I'm glad that we've cleared up that CC-BY-SA and link-back credit aren't irreconcilable after all. Now we're apparently moving on to the new topic: Do site-wide terms of use matter when determining what a license means in practice? I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this argument: Of course a site-wide policy page linked to from every page has relevance when determining the terms of use/re-use. But even a literal and unreasonably narrow focus on the GFDL doesn't support rigorous author attribution: 1) Authors contributed acknowledging that they are licensing their edits under the GFDL; 2) The GFDL has an "at least five principal authors" requirement to give credit on the page title; 3) Wikipedia does not give credit on the page title; 4) The act of repeatedly contributing to Wikipedia under the GFDL can be argued to constitute the release from attribution which the GFDL allows for. The change tracking history section has nothing to do with attribution, as I've noted before. That's evident because the GFDL explicitly places reasonable limitations on the extent of author credit, to prevent the kinds of excessive bylines that we've been talking about. It's also evident because a GFDL document can be created without a page history while still giving author credit. In the context of a wiki, change histories were clearly not designed for purposes of author credit, as they are an incredibly annoying tool when you actually want to use them for this purpose. I'm not making this argument: I am saying that we have established, through historical practice, policy and debate, that crediting re-users via link or URL is a minimally acceptable baseline. What is and isn't acceptable is defined through more than the license. But the experience of contributing under a literal reading of the license alone doesn't support a claim to require stronger author attribution than what we're proposing, or even any author attribution at all. -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
In reply to this post by Thomas Dalton
On Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 1:57 AM, Thomas Dalton <[hidden email]> wrote:
> 10% doesn't sound at all reasonable to me. In one of the previous emails I described that 5 very active contributors were not happy with the situation at sr.wp at the time when there were ~40 very active contributors. I don't think that sr.wp had much more than 100 important contributors and I may count 10 unhappy. So, the first 10% have some empirical grounds. Actually, even the next 10% have empirical grounds: I know the person who would sue sr.wp community if they can. Fortunately, the next 10% are 0.1. >> But, it is reasonable to suppose that Mike's legal predictions are >> more relevant than mine :) So, legal part is no issue anymore for me. > > Only the last percentage is really a legal prediction, the rest are > more predictions of human behaviour. That said, the last percentage is > probably the only one that anyone can give anything more than a wild > guess at (which is why I didn't choose any stronger words than > "plausible" to describe them). I was not EFF lawyer and Serbia is an irrelevant place for copyright and patent issues: we have 1 (one) person with PhD in copyright :) _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
In reply to this post by Erik Moeller-4
2009/3/21 Erik Moeller <[hidden email]>:
> Well, I'm glad that we've cleared up that CC-BY-SA and link-back > credit aren't irreconcilable after all. Well I suppose that confirms you haven't really been paying attention. > Now we're apparently moving on > to the new topic: Do site-wide terms of use matter when determining > what a license means in practice? I'm not going to spend a lot of time > on this argument: Of course a site-wide policy page linked to from > every page has relevance when determining the terms of use/re-use. I assume you are trying to claim that wikipedia:copyrights is some kind of TOS equiv. Now that argument is flawed on a number of grounds but I think I'll take the easy option. Where is the link of the following pages: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canale_artificiale http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanal http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hampshire_County,_West_Virginia http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BB_(%D0%B3%D0%B8%D0%B4%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%84%D0%B8%D1%8F) http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanaal_(waterweg) > But > even a literal and unreasonably narrow focus on the GFDL doesn't > support rigorous author attribution: > > 1) Authors contributed acknowledging that they are licensing their > edits under the GFDL; > 2) The GFDL has an "at least five principal authors" requirement to > give credit on the page title; > 3) Wikipedia does not give credit on the page title; Strangely there is no requirement that the history and the title page not be the same thing. > 4) The act of repeatedly contributing to Wikipedia under the GFDL can > be argued to constitute the release from attribution which the GFDL > allows for. Please provide the section you think allows for it. > > The change tracking history section has nothing to do with > attribution, as I've noted before. That's evident because the GFDL > explicitly places reasonable limitations on the extent of author > credit, to prevent the kinds of excessive bylines that we've been > talking about. Questionable. The GFDL is quite happy to see the title page extend over several pages. >It's also evident because a GFDL document can be > created without a page history while still giving author credit. However it cannot be modified without creating a history and that history is required to include "new authors" among other things. > In > the context of a wiki, change histories were clearly not designed for > purposes of author credit, as they are an incredibly annoying tool > when you actually want to use them for this purpose. The exception being if you want to use them in the context of the GFDL which has a similar bunch of annoying requirements for it's history section. > I'm not making this argument: Then please don't waste bandwidth with it. >I am saying that we have established, > through historical practice, policy and debate, that crediting > re-users via link or URL is a minimally acceptable baseline. False. Look up history merging sometime. >What is > and isn't acceptable is defined through more than the license. But the > experience of contributing under a literal reading of the license > alone doesn't support a claim to require stronger author attribution > than what we're proposing, or even any author attribution at all. Please state which section of the GFDL you are referring to here. I'm fed up with playing guessing games. -- geni _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
2009/3/20 geni <[hidden email]>:
> Now that argument is flawed on a number of grounds but I think I'll > take the easy option. Where is the link of the following pages: Try the edit pages. >> 1) Authors contributed acknowledging that they are licensing their >> edits under the GFDL; >> 2) The GFDL has an "at least five principal authors" requirement to >> give credit on the page title; >> 3) Wikipedia does not give credit on the page title; > > Strangely there is no requirement that the history and the title page > not be the same thing. There's no reason to assume that they are. The GFDL defines Title Page as the text "near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, preceding the beginning of the body of the text". The interpretation that an arbitrarily titled link somewhere on the document (it used to be called "Older versions") to a difficult to navigate changelog exists to satisfy the author credit provisions of the GFDL (section 4.B, since you asked) is hardly more defensible than the interpretation that credit is given to the Wikipedia community ("From Wikipedia"), or that no credit is given. You're in woolly territory to begin with, which again re-affirms what I've been saying: we can identify, through past practices, community-created terms of re-use, the way that Wikipedia itself implements the GFDL, etc., a reasonable baseline. Providing credit by linking to the page is a reasonable baseline. And again, nowhere does a significantly greater expectation for credit reasonably arise. >>It's also evident because a GFDL document can be >> created without a page history while still giving author credit. > > However it cannot be modified without creating a history and that > history is required to include "new authors" among other things. Irrelevant. >>I am saying that we have established, >> through historical practice, policy and debate, that crediting >> re-users via link or URL is a minimally acceptable baseline. > > False. Look up history merging sometime. Re-parse "minimally acceptable baseline". -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
In reply to this post by Erik Moeller-4
On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 9:07 PM, Erik Moeller <[hidden email]> wrote:
> The change tracking history section has nothing to do with > attribution, as I've noted before. However, you're quite inconsistent on that point. As one example among many, you said earlier "Indeed, the only way in which contributors are credited in Wikipedia is through a history of changes." What is and isn't acceptable is defined through more than the license. Like polling? 1 out of 5 Wikipedians polled expressed that they expect a full list of authors to be listed in an offline copy. "Attribution by link" is acceptable to most Wikipedians, but not to all. > 4) The CC-BY-SA license grants the author the option to not supply a > name for purposes of attribution. The CC-BY-SA license grants the > author the option to supply a URL. Are you claiming that Wikipedians have supplied such a URL? What is the URL they have supplied? Must all reusers supply this URL, or is it optional for them to do so? _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
In reply to this post by Michael Snow-3
Дана Friday 20 March 2009 23:11:17 Michael Snow написа:
> Nikola Smolenski wrote: > > Дана Friday 20 March 2009 06:59:35 Michael Snow написа: > >> Nikola Smolenski wrote: > >>> It is just your opinion that they have over-attributed; my opinion is > >>> that their way of attribution is reasonable. > >> > >> Just because one method is reasonable does not mean that all others are > >> unreasonable. > > > > Has anyone said that? > > Not necessarily in so many words. But for proponents of the > "all-authors" approach to attribution, an inherent part of the subtext I am not a proponent of an all-authors approach to attribution, and I do not know anyone who is. As I have said multiple times, I believe that it is possible through software means to determine a list of key authors (all authors whose contributions are copyrightable) with sufficient accuracy, and that such a list would be reasonable from the point of view of authors, and also short enough that it would be reasonable from the point of view of reusers, and should be recommended to reusers. > By comparison, Erik only said that people had over-attributed > historically. He didn't say it was unreasonable of them to > over-attribute, nor do I think that should be implied in what he said. When you are over-something, it means that you are doing more of it than you should. Usually it is not reasonable to behave like that. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
In reply to this post by Erik Moeller-4
Дана Saturday 21 March 2009 01:52:06 Erik Moeller написа:
> 2009/3/20 Nikola Smolenski <[hidden email]>: > >> The fact that they may or may not be logged in is completely > >> irrelevant if the terms and conditions clarify that their username has > >> nothing to do with the option of supplying an Original Author name as > > > > But the terms and conditions do not clarify that, anywhere. > > So let's step back for a second. There is a claim that the legal code > of CC-BY-SA cannot be reconciled with the notion of attributing via > URL-linkback only. Do you agree that this claim is false? If the claim Of course it is false. CC-BY-SA can be reconciled with attributing by URL only (or even with not attributing at all), however in our practice it isn't. > for a website under which authors contribute under such a model. If it > is possible, then the final question is whether the current proposed > terms for the edit page satisfy those conditions. I contend that they > do, because they are sufficiently clear about the intended > consequences (we don't need to spell out in detail how the terms and I read them, and I know I still expected that in print my name would be there somewhere. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
In reply to this post by Erik Moeller-4
2009/3/21 Erik Moeller <[hidden email]>:
> 2009/3/20 geni <[hidden email]>: >> Now that argument is flawed on a number of grounds but I think I'll >> take the easy option. Where is the link of the following pages: > > Try the edit pages. Doesn't help you. Even those that do mention their equiv of wikipedia:copyrights don't mention it in a context where it could be a be considered a TOS and not all do. Then of course we have commons who's Commons:Licensing doesn't help you at all. Seriously Erik it bad enough that you are not paying attention but suggesting I wouldn't check your claim is somewhat insulting. > There's no reason to assume that they are. Actually there is see. Remember every wikipedian who has edited a page has released a modified version of a GFDL document. I hope you are not accusing them of violating copyright on a massive page >The GFDL defines Title Page > as the text "near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, > preceding the beginning of the body of the text". The interpretation > that an arbitrarily titled link somewhere on the document (it used to > be called "Older versions") to a difficult to navigate changelog > exists to satisfy the author credit provisions of the GFDL (section > 4.B, since you asked) is hardly more defensible than the > interpretation that credit is given to the Wikipedia community ("From > Wikipedia"), or that no credit is given. Given that neither of those would be legal under the GFDL I don't think you are helping your case. >You're in woolly territory to > begin with, which again re-affirms what I've been saying: we can > identify, through past practices, community-created terms of re-use, > the way that Wikipedia itself implements the GFDL, etc., a reasonable > baseline. Providing credit by linking to the page is a reasonable > baseline. And again, nowhere does a significantly greater expectation > for credit reasonably arise. The book version of the German wikipedia? The import export functions? >>>It's also evident because a GFDL document can be >>> created without a page history while still giving author credit. >> >> However it cannot be modified without creating a history and that >> history is required to include "new authors" among other things. > > Irrelevant. Given that only the terms of the GFDL will allow wikipedia to switch to CC-BY-SA declaring said terms to be Irrelevant is at best foolish. >>>I am saying that we have established, >>> through historical practice, policy and debate, that crediting >>> re-users via link or URL is a minimally acceptable baseline. >> >> False. Look up history merging sometime. > > Re-parse "minimally acceptable baseline". Seeing how we react to cut and paste moves I would suggest your minimally acceptable baseline isn't. -- geni _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
On Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 8:42 AM, geni <[hidden email]> wrote:
> 2009/3/21 Erik Moeller <[hidden email]>: > > There's no reason to assume that they are. > > Actually there is see. Remember every wikipedian who has edited a page > has released a modified version of a GFDL document. I hope you are not > accusing them of violating copyright on a massive page > That's one way to look at it. A more sane way would be that wikipedians have collaborated on a number of documents which they agree to release to third parties under the GFDL. >The GFDL defines Title Page > > as the text "near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, > > preceding the beginning of the body of the text". The interpretation > > that an arbitrarily titled link somewhere on the document (it used to > > be called "Older versions") to a difficult to navigate changelog > > exists to satisfy the author credit provisions of the GFDL (section > > 4.B, since you asked) is hardly more defensible than the > > interpretation that credit is given to the Wikipedia community ("From > > Wikipedia"), or that no credit is given. > > Given that neither of those would be legal under the GFDL I don't > think you are helping your case. Yeah, I'm pretty sure I was blasted for saying this. However, I don't see how you can honestly claim otherwise. Wikipedia doesn't follow the GFDL, and never has. On the other hand, that doesn't excuse third parties from not following the GFDL. Given that only the terms of the GFDL will allow wikipedia to switch > to CC-BY-SA declaring said terms to be Irrelevant is at best foolish. At least it's honest. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
In reply to this post by Anthony-73
I've been meaning to reply in this thread to what Jussi said. (Sorry to not reply inline; I'm on my Blackberry.)
Jussi said he's only seen comments on the licensing issue from the staff, and not from the board. That may be true on this list, and it may be true for the specific piece of the conversation that interests him; I'm not sure. But I do want to point out two things. 1) At its January meeting, the board developed and unanimously voted to approve, a statement in favour of migration. I think it was included in my January report that was published here on foundation-l a few weeks ago. If I'm wrong and the full statement's not in in that report, let me know and I'll send it to this list. (Or Domas will, or another board member will.) 2) Also at the January board meeting, the board made an explicit request to staff and board members, to publicly speak their minds on this issue. Some people probably would do that anyway, but the board wanted to explicitly request it in this case. Why? Because the license migration issue is pretty complex, and not everyone understands it well. Basically, people fall into three camps. 1., Those who are already knowledgeable, and have developed a position. 2., Those who aren't yet knowledgeable, but plan to read up in advance of the vote, in order to develop a position. And 3., those who don't plan to read up, and would rather trust others (board, staff, other volunteers) to do the research on their behalf, and to advise them. The board is encouraging knowledgeable staff and board members to express their opinions, as a service for those latter two groups. That is why you're hearing a lot from Erik and Mike in the license migration threads. Because they're knowledgeable about the issue, and the board has asked them to share what they think :-) Thanks, Sue -----Original Message----- From: Anthony <[hidden email]> Date: Thu, 19 Mar 2009 09:41:58 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List<[hidden email]> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Licensing transition: opposing points of view On Thu, Mar 19, 2009 at 1:36 AM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <[hidden email] > wrote: > The one loud voice here from the foundation *staff* (staff > mind you, not the board of trustees) was espousing a very > novel interpretation of the CC-BY-SA that would have quite > spectacularly failed the "tentacles of evil" test of the Debian > guidelines. > A view which the Creative Commons lawyers themselves have endorsed. It's fortunate that the motives of this move came out before the decision was made, because nothing is stopping CC from changing the license later. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
In reply to this post by Anthony-73
So, the authors directly relate to give completely true form of
contributed to switch to assume your minimally acceptable is because of share-alike, but you are contribution? skype: node.ue 2009/3/21 Anthony <[hidden email]>: > On Sat, Mar 21, 2009 at 8:42 AM, geni <[hidden email]> wrote: > >> 2009/3/21 Erik Moeller <[hidden email]>: >> > There's no reason to assume that they are. >> >> Actually there is see. Remember every wikipedian who has edited a page >> has released a modified version of a GFDL document. I hope you are not >> accusing them of violating copyright on a massive page >> > > That's one way to look at it. A more sane way would be that wikipedians > have collaborated on a number of documents which they agree to release to > third parties under the GFDL. > >>The GFDL defines Title Page >> > as the text "near the most prominent appearance of the work's title, >> > preceding the beginning of the body of the text". The interpretation >> > that an arbitrarily titled link somewhere on the document (it used to >> > be called "Older versions") to a difficult to navigate changelog >> > exists to satisfy the author credit provisions of the GFDL (section >> > 4.B, since you asked) is hardly more defensible than the >> > interpretation that credit is given to the Wikipedia community ("From >> > Wikipedia"), or that no credit is given. >> >> Given that neither of those would be legal under the GFDL I don't >> think you are helping your case. > > > Yeah, I'm pretty sure I was blasted for saying this. However, I don't see > how you can honestly claim otherwise. Wikipedia doesn't follow the GFDL, > and never has. On the other hand, that doesn't excuse third parties from > not following the GFDL. > > Given that only the terms of the GFDL will allow wikipedia to switch >> to CC-BY-SA declaring said terms to be Irrelevant is at best foolish. > > > At least it's honest. > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > [hidden email] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
In reply to this post by Sue Gardner
Sue Gardner wrote:
> I've been meaning to reply in this thread to what Jussi said. (Sorry to not reply inline; I'm on my Blackberry.) > > First of all, can I ask as a favor that you never again refer to me as "Jussi". Jussi is my grandpa. I am Jussi-Ville, or "J-V" (Jay-Vee) for short. Often also known by my TLA "JVH" in contexts of people like Mike Godwin, who date me from the early ages of the internet. I am not offended, but I do want to make it clear that referring to me as "Jussi" does have significance. > Jussi said he's only seen comments on the licensing issue from the staff, and not from the board. That may be true on this list, and it may be true for the specific piece of the conversation that interests him; I'm not sure. > > But I do want to point out two things. > > 1) At its January meeting, the board developed and unanimously voted to approve, a statement in favour of migration. I think it was included in my January report that was published here on foundation-l a few weeks ago. If I'm wrong and the full statement's not in in that report, let me know and I'll send it to this list. (Or Domas will, or another board member will.) > > 2) Also at the January board meeting, the board made an explicit request to staff and board members, to publicly speak their minds on this issue. Some people probably would do that anyway, but the board wanted to explicitly request it in this case. Why? Because the license migration issue is pretty complex, and not everyone understands it well. > Basically, people fall into three camps. 1., Those who are already knowledgeable, and have developed a position. 2., Those who aren't yet knowledgeable, but plan to read up in advance of the vote, in order to develop a position. And 3., those who don't plan to read up, and would rather trust others (board, staff, other volunteers) to do the research on their behalf, and to advise them. The board is encouraging knowledgeable staff and board members to express their opinions, as a service for those latter two groups. > > That is why you're hearing a lot from Erik and Mike in the license migration threads. Because they're knowledgeable about the issue, and the board has asked them to share what they think :-) > > These are valuable words. I genuinely trust that what has been generated has not been only heat, but there has been some illumination shed on the issues as well. Personally as I have said before I am somewhat wanly satisfied with where we stand at the moment, provided there will be no back-sliding later. In an ideal world I would prefer multi-licensing under *all* localized versions of CC-BY-SA 3.0 and a TOS that would pre-emptively require assent to multi-licensing under any future localized versions. That way the issue would squarely land on the re-user, and not on who adds material. That is the editor wouldn't have to choose the jurisdictive limits of their licensing, but the one creating a work outside wikimedia would have to do so. But it isn't clear that we do live in an ideal world. ;-) Yours, no offense taken nor hopefully given, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [hidden email] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l |
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